HOPKINS, MATTHEW

HOPKINS, MATTHEW (1808–1883). Matthew Hopkins, Galveston County newspaperman and promoter, was born on July 4, 1808, in New York City. He moved first to Alabama and a short time later to Texas. In 1838 he became associated with a group of men who bought Galveston Island and the peninsula to the south (Follets Islandqv) and laid out a town after the discovery that San Luis Pass afforded safe passage to the harbor of Galveston. In 1839 Hopkins opened a store in Galveston, and at San Luis he and Tod Robinson, as principal editors, founded a newspaper, the San Luis Advocate. By 1841 he was a director of the Brazos and Galveston Railroad. When the channel at San Luis filled up and the town collapsed, Hopkins moved the press to Columbia and began publication of the Columbia Planter, which he served as editor. He ran articles on "Organization and Education" between 1841 and 1843, and the newspaper first published his serial novel, Marianna and Her Wrongs. Hopkins died on November 23, 1883, in Austin, where he worked for many years as clerk of the United States district court.

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